How to Enroll

New Students

After logging into Mosaic, the main page displays news and information for graduate students. A student can access the student centre to enrol in courses and access other services such as transcripts, student accounts and financial aid.

All new students (who will be receiving a credential from McMaster) are required to take two courses in their first month of study:

• SGS 101-- Academic Research Integrity and Ethics

• SGS 201—Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

Graduate Student Responsibilities

In its commitment to helping students achieve their academic goals, McMaster University makes available numerous tools and resources, including the Graduate Calendar. However, students must assume certain responsibilities.

Enrolment Confirmation

At the start of each academic year, a student must confirm enrolment details, before accessing the student centre. This confirmation will include both the citizenship and program of study. Any errors should be reported to your program office. After confirming these details, the student can proceed to the student centre and select courses and access other services. International students must provide a valid study permit to the School of Graduate Studies in Gilmour Hall 212 on arrival and maintaining a valid permit until the program is completed.

Step 1 Citizenship Confirmation

Step 2 Program Confirmation

Other responsibilities include:

Meeting admission requirements for a program and applying by the stated deadline.

Selecting courses that meet the program requirements. A graduate student must enrol in at least one course in all three terms in order to be fully enrolled. If a student is not taking an academic course in any term, they must still add a placeholder course.

SGS 700 --For students who pay fees on a term by term basis

SGS 711-- For students who pay fees on course costed basis

Failure to enrol by the start of term may jeopardise the on-time payment of scholarships, pay and other bursaries.

Completing courses in an order that meets prerequisite requirements.

Becoming familiar with and respecting Sessional Dates, the general academic regulations (see General Academic Regulations section of the Calendar) and the program/plan specific regulations as found in the appropriate section of the Calendar.

Maintaining continuous registration until the student graduates or withdraws from the program. Failure to register will result in the student being withdrawn from the program.

Experience has shown that students who do not follow these guidelines may experience academic consequences such as cancellation of registration in courses, completion of courses that are not counted towards their degree, or delayed graduation.

Become familiar with and respect the Senate Policies.

Pay fees within the prescribed deadline.

Be aware that changes to academic load and program/plan may affect eligibility for government financial aid (e.g. OSAP and out-of-province loan programs), University financial aid (e.g. bursaries and work programs) and scholarships.

Consult with the Student Accessibility Services (SAS) in a timely manner to make the necessary accommodations for special needs

Enrollment Overview

Graduate students are required to enrol in all available terms within an academic year. Returning students must enrol in all three terms, regardless of when they intend to complete their degree. Students on a Leave of Absence for an entire term, not part of the term, are the only exception and should not enrol in any courses in the term that they are on Leave.

Academically accredited courses can either be part term 1.5 unit, full term 3 unit or multiple term 6 unit courses. Please refer to the Sessional Dates in the Graduate Calendar to familiarise yourself with the date limits for adding courses to your Academic Record.

Students must enrol in a placeholder course in any term in which no academically accredited courses are being taken. Students in programs charged per term should add SGS 700. Students in programs charged per course should add SGS 711. Visiting (Research Only) students should enrol in SGS 302.

Every graduate student should have one course in each term, if you want to change the last remaining course in a term you should first add the new course and then drop the course no longer required. For example if you had added a placeholder SGS 700 whilst considering which academic course to take, once you have made your selection of the academic course you should add this course first before dropping the placeholder. This is an important process as dropping courses can impact Financial Aid, fee assessment and payment of scholarships.

It should be noted that once you have enrolled for an academic course, placeholders are no longer required.

Mosaic provides two methods for enrolling in classes: Plan and Enroll.

Plan allows you to create and save a personalised wishlist of courses. Your planner can include such things as: required courses, potential electives and other related courses of interest. You can use your planner to help you select the classes to enrol into.

Enroll allows you to enrol in specific classes one by one.

This guide will give you step-by-step instructions for each of these methods.

Plan

Plan: Step 1 of 16

Sign into Mosaic, click on the Student Center tab and the click on Plan under Academics on the left.

Plan: Step 2 of 16

Click on the Browse Course Catalog button.

Plan: Step 3 of 16

Selected the letter relating to the first word of the program from which you want to select courses. For example: C for Computing and Software. Then click on the link for that program to reveal all of the graduate courses offered.

Plan: Step 4 of 16

If you would like to read a detailed description of a course you can click the link and, from the detail screen, you have the option to click the add to planner button.

Plan: Step 5 of 16

or select multiple courses that you wish to add and then click the add to planner button.

Plan: Step 6 of 16

Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have added all of the courses that you want to your planner. Then click the my planner tab to return to your planner.

Plan: Step 7 of 16

To enrol in a course from the planner, click on the link for that course to be taken to the detail view. Then click on the view class sections button.

Plan: Step 8 of 16

Select the desired term from the drop down list and then click the show sections button.

Plan: Step 9 of 16

If sections are available in that term, these will be revealed below. Select the section that you want to enrol in by clicking the select button.

Plan: Step 10 of 16

Review your choice and then press the next button.

Plan: Step 11 of 16

The course will now be added to your shopping cart. Click on the return to my planner link and repeat this step, if you wish to add more courses, or, to go to your shopping cart, click the link.

Plan: Step 12 of 16

From within the Shopping Cart, before enrolling into the class, first validate the course to make sure that you are eligible to enrol into it. Tick the checkbox next to the desired course and then click the validate button.

Plan: Step 13 of 16

If all is well, you will see a green tick. If you receive an error, you may need permission from your department or be missing a requisite for the course. Please speak to your Graduate Administrator for assistance. Click the Shopping Cart button to return to the shopping cart.

Plan: Step 14 of 16

To enrol in validated classes, tick the checkbox next to the desired course and then click the enroll button.

Plan: Step 15 of 16

Review the information on the confirmation screen one last time and, if correct, click the Finish Enrolling button.

Plan: Step 16 of 16

If you encounter any issues, please speak to your Graduate Administrator for any assistance.

Enroll

Enroll: Step 1 of 13

Sign into Mosaic, click on the Student Center tab and the click on Enroll under Academics on the left.

Enroll: Step 2 of 13

Each class in Mosaic is assigned a unique class number related to the term in which it is offered. This number is not the same as the course number. Unless the exact class number is known, click the class search radio button and press the search button.

Enroll: Step 3 of 13

Fill in the search parameters and press the search button.

Enroll: Step 4 of 13

Selected the desired class and section from the search results by pressing the select class button. Also hi-lighted is the class number that Mosaic uses to uniquely identify the class and section in that term.

Enroll: Step 5 of 13

Review your choice and then press the next button.

Enroll: Step 6 of 13

From within the Shopping Cart, before enrolling into the class, first validate the course to make sure that you are eligible to enrol into it. Tick the checkbox next to the desired course and then click the validate button.

Enroll: Step 7 of 13

If all is well, you will see a green tick. If you receive an error, you may need permission from your department or be missing a requisite for the course. Please speak to your Graduate Administrator for assistance. Click the Shopping Cart button to return to the shopping cart.

Enroll: Step 8 of 13

To enrol in validated classes, tick the checkbox next to the desired course and then click the enroll button.

Enroll: Step 9 of 13

Review the information on the confirmation screen one last time and, if correct, click the Finish Enrolling button.

Enroll: Step 10 of 13

If you encounter any issues, please speak to your Graduate Administrator for any assistance.

Enroll: Step 11 of 13

Step 1

If you want to drop a course sign into Mosaic and click on the Student Center tab and click enroll under Academics on the left.

Enroll: Step 12 of 13

Step 2

Confirm which course you would like to drop

Enroll: Step 13 of 13

Step 3

View Results -- Course will not be dropped if it is the last remaining course in a term.